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[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Not sure if this fits in with this thread but, it does contain a couple of points of interest
1. AE and FN experience of the temperature inside and outside of the Electra
2. A leaking oleo strut
To the Red Sea
 
Daybreak starts has been the order of our going because it was wise to get flying finished by noon when possible. Normally, the greatest heat came after midday, to be avoided both by man and machine. Not that either Fred or i particularly minded the occasional broiling of cockpit or fuselage (often the outer coating of the plane's metal was too hot to touch, while the temperatures of its innards sometimes were so high for our peace of mind we avoided recording them). But very hot can make difficult flying. It is thin and lacks lifting power. On equatorial fields, with the sun reflecting from the sands, one has to watch landing speed, which must be faster than normal. Also after a day of heat the air is apt to be particularly rough. Despite our plans we were held until half past one in the afternoon. at Fort Lamy. that was because of a small leak in a shock absorber of the landing gear. Air from one oleo escaped. to pump it up again taxed the manpower resources of the little station almost to capacity. thee are more pleasant diversions than hand-pumping at a temperature well over one hundred degrees

http://www.ourpacificocean.com/oceania_amelia_earhart3/index.htm

[Tom Swearengen]

Well Dr. Malcolm---I think we finally have agreement on something! This project is a complicated task. The artifacts, to date, dont indicate in my mind that Amelia was there---but we know some one was. The point of the Electra is in my mind the key to this piece of the puzzle. IF the wreckage that we are looking for turns out to be the Electra, then that shows it was on the island. Not necessarily landed there, but was there never the less.
It is an artifact, and subject to all the different investigating tools available, archaelogical and others.
Look---I'm a common sense kind of guy. Show me. I dont understand e=mc2. Or lasers, or in some case navigation, although Gary helped a bunch. I dont get extracting DNA from bones. Thats wayyyyy out of my league, and I admire those that can do it. But ---you show me confirmed wreckage of NR16020 on the reef at Nikumaroro, and I'll say ok---but it COULD have crashed, sank, drifted, and is now there.
See, for me, 75 years is what may be the deciding factor. Wind, waves, seismic activity, and erosion of materials are all working against us. TIGHAR, is attempting to reverse time, for a while, to find artifacts to so that Amelia was on Niku. For me, it sounds good so far, but and show me.
You know-----others may be right also. I believed she died in the Pacific area. On Niku? I dont know, but show me.
See you in DC.
Tom

[Irvine John Donald]

Tom, I, personally, believe the post loss radio signals as the key to this whole thing. Ignore, for a moment, all other information you know on the hypothesis. If you believe that even one radio message came from AE then it means several things are true. AE is alive, the plane is on land and upright, it can run the right hand engine. If the plane is on land then there is a limited number of islands she can be on. The Electra didn't crash, sink and drift. It landed.

The main thing is if you believe in the radio messages. They happened or they didn't. That to me is the focal point. Re read the Post Loss radio signal report again. This isn't one radio message being analyzed. It's 182. Independent and separate radio reports. You have to believe that all 182 reporting parties are lying in order to say there isn't one real one.  Yes you can say they thought they heard something that wasn't there but now you have no one in the entire Pacific operating a radio who can accurately report what they are hearing. Is that likely?

[Malcolm McKay]

Well Dr. Malcolm---I think we finally have agreement on something! This project is a complicated task.

Hello Tom

Yes I am a very show me kind of person - and my training as an archaeologist and working as one only reinforced it. The hardest thing is this world is telling someone whose deeply held beliefs have metamorphosed into a hypothesis is that the basic data either doesn't support it or is equally capable of being interpreted as something else. Archaeologists in particular seem to have to do this a lot because according to the TV documentaries it is all so damned easy to understand events from a few broken pots and a couple of stone tools. 

Regards

Malcolm

[Oskar Erich Heinrich Haberlandt]

Tom, I, personally, believe the post loss radio signals as the key to this whole thing. Ignore, for a moment, all other information you know on the hypothesis. If you believe that even one radio message came from AE then it means several things are true. AE is alive, the plane is on land and upright, it can run the right hand engine. If the plane is on land then there is a limited number of islands she can be on. The Electra didn't crash, sink and drift. It landed.

The main thing is if you believe in the radio messages. They happened or they didn't. That to me is the focal point. Re read the Post Loss radio signal report again. This is one radio message being analyzed. It's 182. Independent and separate radio reports. You have to believe that all 182 reporting parties are lying in order to say there isn't one real one.  Yes you can say they thought they heard something that wasn't there but now you have no one in the entire Pacific operating a radio who can accurately report what they are hearing. Is that likely?

Well, that's true. But if we think only one of all the messages is real, we don't know much more. Only Ellen Long (Crashed and sank) would be wrong, but all the other theories, especially the Marshall Island hypothesis (Captured by the Japanese) could be right.

[Gary LaPook]

Tom, I, personally, believe the post loss radio signals as the key to this whole thing. Ignore, for a moment, all other information you know on the hypothesis. If you believe that even one radio message came from AE then it means several things are true. AE is alive, the plane is on land and upright, it can run the right hand engine. If the plane is on land then there is a limited number of islands she can be on. The Electra didn't crash, sink and drift. It landed.

The main thing is if you believe in the radio messages. They happened or they didn't. That to me is the focal point. Re read the Post Loss radio signal report again. This is one radio message being analyzed. It's 182.[/b] Independent and separate radio reports. You have to believe that all 182 reporting parties are lying in order to say there isn't one real one.  Yes you can say they thought they heard something that wasn't there but now you have no one in the entire Pacific operating a radio who can accurately report what they are hearing. Is that likely?

Don't get carried away by numbers, even TIGHAR says that 130 out of the 182 are NOT credible. Of the remaining 52 that TIGHAR claims are credible, 7 are duplicates so there are really only 45 messages supposedly sent by Earhart. However, as I have pointed out, none of those are really credible because none provide a location which even people on the street recognize as being the most important and the first piece of information that should be sent in an emergency message. There are even more reasons for why none of the claimed reports are credible and I will go into that more later.

gl

[Tom Swearengen]

Morning all. This project is getting more exciting each day. I cant wait to get to DC, meet alot of you, see the real evidence for myself, and be able to discuss this very exciting and rewarding subject.
We all have some different views, which is good. We all can discuss them, which is also good. Some of us have had little differences of those opinions, and have still been able to comminucate. That is excellent! I commend all of us.
Now---Irv-on the radio signals. At this point, I have to believe the triangulation of reported signals from the Phoenix group. By believing so, I say the crash and sank theory wont work, and the Electra has to be able to transmit, which means on land.  Doesnt necessarily mean she is on Niku, but for me its a stretch to think of another area in the the Phoenix Group where she could be. But---its a starting point for a search.
DR. Malcolm--in my previous 'life', I used to race cars, and one thing we learned quickly is to formulate ideas to play in the 'gray area' of the rules to get a competitive advantage. Yeah, I know, but 2nd place is the first looser. Anyway the point is we formulated ideas to make the car faster, and went and did repeated testing to see if our idea gave us the results we wanted. No matter what the theory or idea was, you have to believe the result. (The moon is not made of cheese, its rock). So---if your results validate the theory, then great. If the results didnot validate then, it doesnt mean the theory is bad, it just means the results were different than what you thought they were going to be. Perhaps the theory was off alittle. The results give you a baseline to improve the theory. In TIGHARS case, we have a theory: Amelia and Fred, landed the Electra on the Northwest reef edge of Gardner Island near the wreck of the Norwich City in 1937. To test that, TIGHAR needed to figure out if it was possible to get there. Total possible time aloft was good, so yes, it was possible. Probable: well does anything point to her being there? Post loss radio signals from 3 days and nights, that were triangulated to have possibly originated from the Phoenix Island group near Gardner Island. If you can attribute those signals from being from her, then yes it is a starting point. Were they hoaxes? Possibly, but its a theory.

Now---I'm not big on archaeology--sorry Malcolm, but I certainly do understand the importance of it. But---I do think that search for potential Electra wreckage is archaeology in a sense, so that excites me. So, whether or not the stuff on the reef is aircraft wreckage is, in my mind at least, an archaeological expedition---aviation archaeology. It may not be, but I think that as a archaeologist you probably have done some excavations that didnt produce the result that yo were looking for. The wreckage may be from a Japaneese seaplane from the war. I dont know, but we should be able to figure that out soon enough. IF, it is parts of the Electra, then we know the plane was there--not a crash and sink in the ocean. Part of the theory is then validated---the Electra made it to Gardner. Doesnt mean landed on the reef, doesnt mean Amelia was at the seven site, just means the Electra was at Niku. IMHO-to test the landing, the landing gear"nessie' theory, you have to find parts of the left wing/engine mount/gear area. If you DO find them ( OH  BOY) on the ocean bottom, and the gear mount has been ripped and twisted off, then that is pretty convincing of the gear stuck in a reef trough, and wave action tearing it apart. Alittle thinking says that 'maybe" AE & Fred were able to use the radio for a period of time, before the destruction. Doesnt mean Nessie was the gear, but ideas are beginning to line up.

Look gentlemen and ladies----we dont know what happened, but we have some very good thought processes. TIGHAR is going to Niku, with the best equipped expedition to try and validate the landing theory by trying to locate and identify aircraft wreckage. They will have results, one way or the other. Either it is, or it is not. If it is, its either the Electra, or its not.
If it is, we have validated several theories. IF now, we make some new ones.
Looking forward to seeing alot of you in DC! Thanks for aloowing me to ramble on for a few minutes.
Tom

[William Thaxton]

First, let me say that I support the Niku search overall.  As of this time it would seem that the best available evidence supports this hypothesis, at least to the point of testing the hypothesis.  Having said that, I think maybe we should examine the three questions George posted a little more carefully.

"Why didn't they transmit their position?"  I learned much of what I know about flying from aviators that began their careers in WWII.  While not contemporaries of AE & FN, they weren't all that far removed.  One of the things I had drilled into me from day one was the format for a position report.  IPTAR:  Identificaqtion Position Time Altitude Remarks.   Even if we consider AE as a marginally experienced aviator, FN was a highly experienced navigator.  As such, "position" becomes almost part of your DNA.  What is more, this isn't unique to aviation.  Marine navigation (from which air navigation draws its essence) follows much the same pattern.  In other words, AE should have known and FN most certainly knew the importance of position, even an estimated position, in any post landing transmission.  For those who think FN didn't know where they were, he could have (and as an experienced navigator would have known how) determined his  longitude to an accuracy of 2-3 degrees with nothing more than a wristwatch.  He could also have determined latitude with his bare hands to an accuracy of less than 5 degrees and could have improved that to 1-2 degrees with a Weems plotter (a variant of which had been used in marine navigation for a long time).  In short, he could have given a position with a circular error of, perhaps, 200 miles or less which certainly would have reduced the search area.  Precedent for format, equipment, and training were all in place.  That makes it seriously questionable that no position was given.

"Why no signal?"  Again, marine precedent says "make a signal".  I also remember my father bringing home from WWII a USAAC pilots survival manual.  As a kid, I must have read that thing a hundred times and one of the first entries..... Make a signal!  Some have made a point that water and food would have been a problem and AE & FN might have been too weak to take such action.  While that is one of the reasons making a signal is one of the FIRST things to be done, that same survival manual I referenced above gave information on finding water on "waterless" islands.  Basically, fresh water is less dense (lighter) than salt water and tends to "float" on top.  In open ocean, wave action causes rapid mixing but the sandy soill of an island inhibits that mixing and you end up with a "lense" of fresh water "floating" on salt water.  To get fresh water just pick a spot above the high tide line and dig.  Not enough to support a population, perhaps, but enough to support a couple of castaways.  Food is even less problematic.  Much has been made of the crab population and their nightly "attacks".  Here's the equation:  "crab" + "rock" = "lunch".  That doesn't even get into the fish and mollusks available in tidal pools on the reef or the various edible seaweeds.  Again, all information from a USAAC survival manual roughly contemporary to these events. 

"Why no memorial structure?"  This one is a bit less compelling.  I don't see why one would necessarily expect to find some sort of memorial structure half a century after the event.  Even closer to the event in time, such a structure might have been misidentified and razed or simply left to fall apart.

I'm not making an argument against the Niku hypothesis here.  It still seems the best available from limited, and sometimes questionable, information.  AE & FN could have been dumber than a bag of rocks, been totally incompetent in their selected fields, and given no thought to the possibility they might have to survive at a remote location for weeks or months.  They could have hit the ground and just "given up" (actually, not all that remote a possibility if they really were that unprepared).  These are, however, questions that merit some thought and deserve more that superficial rejection.

William

[Malcolm McKay]

DR. Malcolm--in my previous 'life', I used to race cars, Now---I'm not big on archaeology--sorry
Tom

Tom I'm not big on racing cars, and you're not big on archaeology - good we are in agreement.

As I have said consistently if TIGHAR do find the evidence either in the form of something demonstrably from Earhart or Noonan like bones or an artifact, or they find parts of the wreck then that will offer affirmative prove of their hypothesis. If they don't then that will offer proof that their hypothesis isn't correct.

That's how it works - belief is never a good substitute for proof.

Regards

Malcolm   

[Irvine John Donald]

Sorry Malcolm. You just wrote that if TIGHAR doesn't produce evidence that proves their hypothesis then that "will offer proof that their hypothesis isn't correct".  How so?  Doesn't lack of evidence mean only that there is a lack of evidence?  Lack of evidence proves nothing.

[Irvine John Donald]

Sorry Gary. I said in my post "This isn't one radio message being analyzed. It's 182. Independent and separate radio reports. You have to believe that all 182 reporting parties are lying in order to say there isn't one real one.". The key words are "being analyzed". I never claimed all 182 were real nor that TIGHAR claimed that. As your post said, even 45 is a large number.  However you have imposed a condition on those 45 that says, to be credible, the messages must provide a location.  Why?  Because others agree that putting a position in the message is important?  That doesn't make it not credible. 

Let me approach it this way. Lets take my favourite five that triangulaed to Gardner.  If the messages were not AE because no position report was given in the message then who made the messages that triangulated back to Gardner?  The radio messages existed so who made them?  I will also ask how they did it from the triangulated position?  I wont even ask why they did it.  I will assume you think it's a hoax call. Malcolm, you can jump in here too. 

[John Ousterhout]

How is it possible to get 5 stations to triangulate on a "sunspot" signal?  I'm familiar with sunspot activity, and the weird signals it can create, but I'm not aware of any examples of stations triangulating on a "sunspot" signal, let alone 5 simultaneously.  This is not to say that it hasn't happened, only that I'm not aware of the test having been performed. 
I now realize that I've assumed that sunspot signals would have a random direction on DF.  Can someone provide proof that they do not?  I've had lots of experience of extremely long-range "skip", and gotten pretty good directional information from a rotatable Yagi that has always confirmed a great-circle path aimed towards the station.  In my amateur experience with radio DF, even odd atmospheric conditions don't make radio waves turn corners, only make them go further than expected, and in a "straight" line.
The 5 signals didn't actually triangulate at Gardner, but rather to the general Phoenix island area.  Gardner has been assumed to be the most likely place an aircraft could land and continue to transmit.

[Malcolm McKay]

Sorry Malcolm. You just wrote that if TIGHAR doesn't produce evidence that proves their hypothesis then that "will offer proof that their hypothesis isn't correct".  How so?  Doesn't lack of evidence mean only that there is a lack of evidence?  Lack of evidence proves nothing.

Well in my backyard I have no evidence to suggest that there used to be an First Dynasty Egyptian pyramid there and that this was pulled down so my house could be built - are you saying that there really is a possibility that there was a First Dynasty Egyptian pyramid there simply because I can't find a trace of it.

Damn!!!! - I'm rich. 

[Gary LaPook]

How is it possible to get 5 stations to triangulate on a "sunspot" signal?  I'm familiar with sunspot activity, and the weird signals it can create, but I'm not aware of any examples of stations triangulating on a "sunspot" signal, let alone 5 simultaneously.  This is not to say that it hasn't happened, only that I'm not aware of the test having been performed. 
I now realize that I've assumed that sunspot signals would have a random direction on DF.  Can someone provide proof that they do not?  I've had lots of experience of extremely long-range "skip", and gotten pretty good directional information from a rotatable Yagi that has always confirmed a great-circle path aimed towards the station.  In my amateur experience with radio DF, even odd atmospheric conditions don't make radio waves turn corners, only make them go further than expected, and in a "straight" line.
The 5 signals didn't actually triangulate at Gardner, but rather to the general Phoenix island area.  Gardner has been assumed to be the most likely place an aircraft could land and continue to transmit.

But your Yagi had a front to back ratio, the RDF's used in 1937 didn't.

gl

[Gary LaPook]

Sorry Gary. I said in my post "This isn't one radio message being analyzed. It's 182. Independent and separate radio reports. You have to believe that all 182 reporting parties are lying in order to say there isn't one real one.". The key words are "being analyzed". I never claimed all 182 were real nor that TIGHAR claimed that. As your post said, even 45 is a large number. However you have imposed a condition on those 45 that says, to be credible, the messages must provide a location.  Why?  Because others agree that putting a position in the message is important?  That doesn't make it not credible. 

Yes, the lack of a location ALONE in any of the claimed messages is enough to make them NOT credible. Apparently, everybody, even those taken off the street, recognize the importance of location in an emergency message. Everybody, that is, except those wedded to the TIGHAR theory.

gl